Security

I’ve been so busy making my second course of 2019 that I forgot to announce my first one! A few weeks ago I finished my newest Pluralsight course, AWS IoT the Big Picture.

This course is perfect for people just getting started with IoT in general or AWS in particular. We’ll cover a vast amount of information about the unique challenges that IoT presents and how AWS IoT can help you address those issues.

Over the last few months, I’ve tried to reach someone at my ISP about concerns I have regarding password storage practices. Namely, that they store them in a form that makes them vulnerable to being exposed in plain text in the case of a data breach. After some initial research, I discovered that the issue is actually a with a vendor called CSG International and that the passwords of 56 million user accounts are currently stored improperly.

In the last few months there’s been a number of online password manager bugs that have made headlines. You might have seen recent reports of a major vulnerability in LastPass, one of the most popular cloud-hosted password managers.

Even more recently then that was the breach of OneLogin, a vendor for single sign on management.

While I wholeheartedly believe that online password managers can be great tools for improving your security, it’s also important to recognize that they do have potential drawbacks.

To avoid these drawbacks and still get the benefits of a password manager, let’s take a look at some local password managers.

Thanks to all the great folks who came over to Wharton tonight for the Python User Group. I had a great time presenting and then learning about PySpark from Monetate.
Some folks wanted the slides to my talk so I’ve included them Here.
You’re also welcome to checkout the code I used on Github. You can also see the live project (hosted by github).
PRs welcome!
Lastly, some of you were curious about other ‘formulas’ for password creation.

Recently, it came to light that the computer manufacturer Lenovo is bundling malware called Superfish in with their Microsoft operating systems. This malware acts in two ways:
It compromises the way that computers verify what is a secured connection and what isn’t - some of the most essential components of internet security. For example, when you visit your bank website you’ll likely see something like this: A lock symbol, sometimes green, sometimes in greyish color that on a click should show you something like this: